Hillary Rodham Clinton, Internet Rights and Wrongs: Choices and Challenges in a Networked World, Speech delivered at George Washington University, Washington, DC, February 15, 2011. The US Secretary of State discusses Internet freedom in the context of citizen protests in Egypt and Iran, WikiLeaks disclosures, and US views on global Internet governance, the benefits of protecting Internet openness, tools to fight Internet suppression, and cyber security. Building on her Remarks on Internet Freedom speech (January 21, 2010) Clinton looks broadly and conceptually at values and tradeoffs in three areas: liberty and security, transparency and confidentiality, and free expression and tolerance and civility.
For analysis, see Monroe Price (University of Pennsylvania), “Clinton’s ‘Long Game’ Advancing Internet Freedom,” Huffington Post, February 20, 2011; Bruce Gottlieb (General Counsel, National Journal),“Commentary: Clinton on Internet Freedom: Living By the Standards We Hold the World To,” National Journal,February 15, 2011; and Evgeny Morozov (Fellow, Stanford University), “America’s Internet Freedom Agenda,”Huffington Post, February 17, 2011.
“Corporate Diplomacy,” PD Magazine, Winter 2011, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. This issue of USC’s online magazine, marking the third year of publication by USC’s public diplomacy graduate students, focuses on “a variety of factors that make the private sector an important source of innovation and collaboration within the public diplomacy process. It’s articles, perspectives, and case studies examine such topics as corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability, business and development, and corporations as stakeholders in public diplomacy.
Jodi Enda, “Retreating from the World,” American Journalism Review, Winter 2010, 14-31. Former Knight Ridder reporter Enda documents the continuing decline in foreign news coverage by American media organizations. She finds, however, that National Public Radio has increased its foreign bureaus from 6 to 17 during the past decade and that “backpack journalism” and “a handful of promising startups offer some hope for the future.”
Ali Fisher and Scott Lucas, eds., Trials of Engagement: The Future of US Public Diplomacy, (Brill, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2011). The essays in this collection, compiled by Fisher (Mappa Munda Consulting) and Lucas (University of Birmingham), focus on a new public diplomacy grounded in communities where participants “cooperate and co-create” in networks of connections. Their goal is to take theory and practice beyond false distinctions between engagement and influence and beyond a soft power model in which one country leads. The essays offer a critique of the limitations of today’s public diplomacy and perspectives on the potential for “a genuinely collaborative public diplomacy.” Includes:
Ali Fisher and Scott Lucas, “Introduction.”
Part I, US Public Diplomacy Today
Philip M. Taylor (University of Leeds), “Public Diplomacy on Trial?” [This essay by the late Phil Taylor offers views developed through a lifetime of pioneering teaching and writing on international communications.]
Eytan Gilboa (Bar-Ilan University and University of Southern California) and Nachman Shai (Member, Kenesset), “Rebuilding Public Diplomacy: The Case of Israel.”
John Robert Kelley (American University), “Advisor Non Grata: The Dueling Roles of U.S. Public Diplomacy.”
Scott Lucas, “Let’s Make This Happen: The Tension of the Unipolar in US Public Diplomacy.”
David Ryan (University College Cork), “The Dots Above the Detail: The Myopia of Meta-Narrative in George W. Bush’s Declarative ‘War of Ideas.'”
Giles Scott-Smith (Roosevelt Academy), “Soft Power, US Public Diplomacy and Global Risk.”
Nicholas J. Cull (University of Southern California), “Karen Hughes and the Brezhnev Syndrome: The Trial of Public Diplomacy as Domestic Performance.”
Lina Khatib (Stanford University), “Public Diplomacy in the Middle East: Dynamics of Success and Failure.”
Elizabeth Fox (US Agency for International Development), “The Longer Term Impact of U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Americas During WWII.”
Bevan Sewall (University of Nottingham), “Competing Narratives: US Public Diplomacy and the Problematic Case of Latin America.”
Part II, The Public Diplomacy of Tomorrow Daryl Copeland (Canadian diplomat and author of Guerrilla Diplomacy), “The Seven Paradoxes of Public Diplomacy.”
R.S. Zaharna (American University), “The Public Diplomacy Challenges of Strategic Stakeholder Engagement.”
Biljana Scott (DiploFoundation and University of Oxford), “Skills of the Public Diplomat: Language, Narrative, and Allegiance.”
Naren Chitty (Macquarie University), “Public Diplomacy: Courting Publics for Short-term Advantage or Partnering Publics for Lasting Peace and Sustainable Prosperity?”
Ali Fisher, “Looking at the Man in the Mirror: Understanding of Power and Influence in Public Diplomacy.”
Robert Gates, “Strategic Communication and Information Operations in the DoD,” Memorandum from the Secretary of Defense, US Department of Defense, January 25, 2011. Secretary Gates summarizes characteristics of a “rapidly changing strategic environment” and decisions taken consequent to a Front-End Assessment of strategic communication (SC) and information operations (IO) initiated in 2010. The memorandum outlines changes in roles, mission, definitions, and a realignment of responsibilities. Its focus is primarily on IO. The Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (Michele Flournoy) and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (Douglas Wilson) are designated as “SC co-leads” for a forthcoming “new DoD Directive and Instruction that will clarify the definition of SC, and address the execution of SC at the DoD and joint force levels.” (Courtesy of Stephanie Helm)
For a critique of the memorandum, see Michael Clauser, “Revising Information Operations Policy at the Department of Defense,” February 15, 2011, a guest post on Matt Armstrong’s MountainRunner.US blog.
Malcolm Gladwell vs. Clay Shirky, “From Innovation to Revolution: Do Social Media Make Protests Possible?” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2011, 153-154. The New Yorker’s Gladwell and the author of Here Comes Everybody briefly exchange views on Shirky’s Foreign Affairs article, “The Political Power of Social Media,”January/February, 2011.
Nik Gowing, ‘Skyful of Lies’ and Black Swans: The New Tyranny of Shifting Information Power in Crises,Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2009. In this 84-page study, veteran BBC journalist Nik Gowing looks at the relentless capacity of “information doers” to fill information space immediately, overwhelmingly, and more effectively in a crisis than government and corporate institutions. In this “Tyranny of the Timeline,” a new generation of assertive and self-confident media challenges policymakers (and traditional media) who face what he calls an F3 dilemma. Should they enter the information first? How fast should they do so? Will their interventions be flawed in ways that undermine their credibility and public confidence? Gowing grounds his argument in numerous examples and offers recommendations for ways in which institutions should prepare for improbable Black Swan events and embrace new real time information realities. (Courtesy of John Hemery)
Charles Hill, Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order,[1](Yale University Press, 2010). Diplomat and scholar (Yale University) Charles Hill looks at the meaning of strategy, power, diplomacy, leadership, governance, and rhetoric through in-depth discussion of some 75 (largely Western) literary works from Homer to Salman Rushdie. Drawing on his own career in the US Foreign Service and extensive secondary sources in addition to literary classics, Hill’s aim is the “restoration of literature as a tutor for statecraft.” Public diplomacy scholars and practitioners will find of interest his assessments of diplomacy and rhetoric, American exceptionalism, the influence of the Emancipation Proclamation on European public opinion, Wilson’s Fourteen Points speech as “the most influential document in American diplomatic history,” and today’s diplomatic “fragmented and evanescent” representation in a world where “nearly every agency of government sends its representatives abroad” and “the diplomat does not represent so much as vie for attention.”
Jeffrey Ghannam, Social Media in the Arab World: Leading Up To the Uprisings of 2011, A Report to the Center for International Media Assistance, National Endowment for Democracy, February 3, 2011. Ghannam (media consultant and former journalist with the Detroit Free Press) discusses trends, limitations, and challenges in the uses of social media by governments and citizens in the Arab world.
Parag Khanna, How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance, (Random House, 2011). Khanna (The New American Foundation and author of The Second World) contends the 21st century’s diplomatic landscape resembles the Middle Ages. “Rising powers, multinational corporations, powerful families, humanitarians, religious radicals, universities, and mercenaries” are the primary diplomatic actors. “Technology and money, not sovereignty, determine who has authority.” Khanna argues the way to “run the world” is with diplomacy. He calls for a new “mega-diplomacy” that brings the key players “into coalitions that can quickly move global resources to solve local problems.” His book looks at characteristics and skill sets of these “new diplomats” and offers his change agenda for a variety of global threats and opportunities.
Teresa La Porte, The Power of the European Union in Global Governance: A Proposal for a New Public Diplomacy, Paper 1, 2011 (February), CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. La Porte (Universdad de Navarra) explores conceptual elements in the evolution of modern diplomacy and the capacity of the European Union (EU) to develop effective public diplomacy in changing conditions of globalization and global governance. She argues that although Europe has lost hard power capabilities, it maintains a capacity to practice an effective power of persuasion (soft power), to combine this with still important economic and military resources (smart power), and to establish international norms of behavior (normative power). La Porte examines these concepts in the context of the EU’s institutions and three scenarios: cooperation in development, conflict prevention, and human rights. She concludes with specific recommendations on ways to strengthen the EU organizationally and improve its public diplomacy. The full text is in English and Spanish.Richard Lugar, Another U.S. Deficit — China and America — Public Diplomacy in the Age of the Internet,Report to the Members of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, February 15, 2011. This report, prepared by Foreign Relations Committee staff member Paul Foldi and transmitted by the Committee’s Ranking Republican Member, provides a comparative assessment of the public diplomacy strategies of the US and China. Lugar and Foldi deplore China’s efforts to suppress information, describe “the aggressive push China is making to project itself on the world stage,” and call for enhanced US public diplomacy with China. Their recommendations include: increased government funding for American Studies Centers in Chinese universities, increased private sector funding for American students in China, expansion of the US Peace Corps program in China, higher priority for US participation in World Expos, and giving the lead on US Internet freedom technology to the Broadcasting Board of Governors rather than the Department of State.
For an assessment of this report, see “US-China Public Diplomacy: Comments on US Senate Report ‘Another US Deficit,'” by Clingendael’s Ingrid d’Hooghe posted February 21, 2011 on her ChinaRelations blog.
Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, (Public Affairs, 2011). The author of Foreign Policy magazine’s Net.Effect blog and numerous articles on the Internet and society has marshaled his arguments in this critique of cyber-utopianism and “digital diplomacy.” Based on his study of claims for the Internet’s democratizing role in Iran, China, Belarus, and elsewhere, Morozov challenges the thinking of leading social media scholars (e.g., Clay Shirky), prominent bloggers (e.g., Andrew Sullivan), US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “Internet Freedom” agenda, and views of current and former US State Department officials (Alec Ross and Jared Cohen). He calls for a realistic assessment of the Internet’s risks and promises, and strategies grounded in a deep understanding of local geopolitical environments and “complex connections between the Internet and the rest of foreign policymaking.”
Evgeny Morozov, “Freedom.gov: Why Washington’s Support for Online Democracy is the Worst Thing Ever to Happen to the Internet,” Foreign Policy, January/February, 2011, 34-35. Morozov continues his critique of Secretary Clinton’s “Internet Freedom” agenda as counterproductive (democratic and authoritarian states are seeking “information sovereignty” from American companies perceived as tools of the US government) and hypocritical (claims of Internet freedom are juxtaposed with attempts to shut down WikiLeaks).
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., The Future of Power, (Public Affairs, 2011). Nye (Harvard University) synthesizes his scholarship on the nature and types of power, examines 21st century power shifts among states and from states to nonstate actors, and responds to his critics. Using numerous examples and expansion of previous arguments, he grounds his analysis of hard, soft, and smart power categories in the context of global trends and the current information revolution. His book offers new thinking on public diplomacy in networked communications and the challenges governments face when “public diplomacy is done more by publics.” The chapter on smart power provides a full discussion of its meaning as a strategy for large and small states and in the context of formal and informal networks. The chapter on cyberpower is an original analysis of power in “a new and volatile human-made environment.”
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “The Internet Gains on Television as Public’s Main News Source,” January 2, 2011. The Pew Research Center’s annual assessment of media trends finds “The “internet is slowly closing on television as American’s main source of news.” Currently 41% say they get most of their national and international news from the Internet, up from 34% three years ago. Print media continue their slow decline to 31% as a main source of news, with radio steady at 16%. (Courtesy of Laura Lind)
Geoffrey Allen Pigman, Contemporary Diplomacy: Representation and Communication in a Globalized World,(Polity Press, 2010). Pigman (Bennington College) examines the study and practice of 21st century diplomacy through analysis of two core interlocking and recurring components: representation and communication. Part I of his book explores changes in diplomatic actors and venues, with chapters on state and sub-state governments, multilateral institutions and supranational and regional polities, global firms, civil society organizations, and eminent person diplomats. Part II discusses diplomatic processes and functions, with chapters on technological change, public diplomacy, economic diplomacy, military and security diplomacy, and cultural diplomacy. Two pairs of broad themes frame his analysis. First, a profusion of diplomatic actors and the effect of communication technologies shape his inquiry into diplomatic practice. Second, at the conceptual level his analysis looks at the extent to which developments in today’s diplomacy are really new and whether or not changes in “the norms and practices of diplomacy are an emergent property of a true global society.”
Lawrence Pintak, The New Arab Journalist: Mission and Identity in a Time of Turmoil, (I.B. Tauris, 2011). Drawing on his years as a Middle East correspondent for CBS and scholar at the American University in Cairo, Pintak (Washington State University) looks at questions of self-identity, framing, and media change in Arab journalism. Grounded in interviews and a cross-border survey of Arab journalists, his book examines the role these journalists play in modern Arab politics in the Middle East and in shaping a “new Arab imagined community” with worldwide reach. Walter Roberts, “The Voice of America — Origins and Reflections II,”AmericaDiplomacy.org, January 10, 2011. Roberts (a retired US diplomat and scholar) provides new information on the origins of the Voice of America (VOA) where he began his public diplomacy career in 1942. With the research assistance of retired VOA writer Chris Kern (see his A Belated Correction) and VOA Librarian Mike Gray, Roberts amplifies findings discussed in his article on VOA’s early history published in 2009. His examination of VOA scripts, recordings, and memoranda confirms his conclusion that US broadcasts began on February 1, 1942, earlier than VOA has long assumed, and sheds new light on the objectives and organizational structure of US international broadcasting.
Philip Seib and Shawn Powers, China in the News: A Comparative Analysis of the China Coverage of BBC World Service, CNN International, and Deutsche Welle, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, July 1, 2010. In this report, now online, Seib (University of Southern California) and Powers (Georgia State University) provide a comparative analysis of the content and framing of China related news by three international broadcasters between January 28 and March 4, 2010. They argue that all three produced similar number of China stories, “each focused on different types of stories and utilized different frames in reporting China news.”
Norton Schwartz, “Strengthening Air Force Language Skills and Cultural Competencies,” Remarks at the Department of Defense Language and Culture Summit, January 26, 2011. General Schwartz, US Air Force Chief of Staff, calls for increased linguistic competence and cross-cultural understanding in the US Armed Forces through a collaborative Defense Department-wide and interagency approach. (Courtesy of Mark Maybury)
Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, (Basic Books, 2011). Turkle (MIT) looks skeptically at a digital future in which sociable robots promise companionship and connectedness without the demands of human intimacy. Although we have invented “inspiring and enhancing technologies,” she argues, we risk becoming overwhelmed “and more oddly alone.” Early debates on artificial intelligence centered on what computational machines could and could not do. Today’s more important question is not whether computers have intelligence or emotions (“they do not”), but whether they have the means to “help us fool ourselves.”
US Department of State, “IIP Announces Changes to Strengthen Its International Information Programs,” News Release, January 28, 2011. In this release, Dawn McCall, Coordinator of the State Department’s Bureau of International Programs, announces changes in the Bureau’s priorities and structure. The changes include expanded use of mobile technologies, more products in foreign languages, consolidation of content production, and creation of new talent management and audience research units. For analysis and comments, see“Revamping Public Diplomacy at the State Department (updated)” at Matt Armstrong’s MountainRunner.us. blog; “Strengthening IIP: Providing Content that Matters” at Craig Hayden’s Intermap blog; and “IIP Announces Changes” at the Public Diplomacy Council’s website.
Jian Wang, ed., Soft Power in China: Public Diplomacy Through Communication, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Wang (University of Southern California) and his collaborators look at specific programs and practices in China’s “pursuit of soft power through public diplomacy.” The collection is the second publication in the Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy edited by Kathy Fitzpatrick (Quinnipiac University) and Philip Seib (University of Southern California). Includes:
Jian Wang, “Introduction: China’s Search of Soft Power.”
Ingrid d’Hooge (Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’), “The Expansion of China’s Public Diplomacy System.”
Hongying Wang (Syracuse University), “China’s Image Projection and Its Impact.”
Xiaoling Zhang (University of Nottingham), “China’s International Broadcasting: A Case Study of CCTV International.”
Ni Chen (City University of Hong Kong), “The Evolving Chinese Government Spokesperson System.”
Lu Tang (University of Alabama) and Hongmei Li (Georgia State University), “Chinese Corporate Diplomacy: Huawei’s CSR Discourse in Africa.”
Jeroen de Kloet, Gladys Pak Lei Chong, and Stefan Landsberger (University of Amsterdam ), “National Image Management Begins at Home: Imagining the New Olympic Citizen.”
Hongmei Li (Georgia State University), “Chinese Diaspora, the Internet, and the Image of China: A Case Study of the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay.”
Yong Z. Volz (University of Missouri), “China’s Image Management Abroad, 1920s-1940s: Origin, Justification, and Institutionalization.”
Judy Paolumbaum (University of Iowa), “Itching the Scratches on Our Minds: American College Students Read and Re-evaluate China.”
Gadi Wolfsfeld, Making Sense of Media & Politics: Five Principles in Political Communication, (Routledge, 2011). In this short, readable book Wolfsfeld (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) analyzes tensions and political relationships among political actors, news media, and consumers of news. His five principles: (1) “Political power can usually be translated into power over the news media.” (2) “When the authorities lose control over the political environment they also lose control over the news.” (3) “There is no such thing as objective journalism (nor can there be).” (4) “The media are dedicated more than anything else to telling a good story and this can often have a major impact on the political process.” (5) “The most important effects of the news media on citizens tend to be unintentional and unnoticed.”
New and Revised Blogs and Websites 2011 Working Group: Public Diplomacy, International Studies Association (ISA). Led by coordinators Craig Hayden (American University) and Kathy Fitzpatrick (Quinnipiac University), the Working Group seeks to establish a productive community of scholars from across ISA disciplines and divisions to advance scholarship and teaching on public diplomacy. One of two ISA sponsored working groups at the Association’s annual convention in Montreal, March 16-19, 2011.
Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange, an association of 76 nongovernmental organizations in the US educational and cultural exchange community. Includes linked pages on Alliance members, a weekly policy monitor, advocacy strategies, an international exchange locator, and a wide variety of inbound and outbound exchange programs.
China Relations, Ingrid d’Hooghe, China specialist and Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, ‘Clingendael,’ The Hague.
Clingendael, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Reading Lists. Clingendael Librarian Ali Molenaar’s comprehensive lists include updates for Public Diplomacy(January 3, 2011), Celebrity Diplomacy (January 3, 2011), City Diplomacy (July 1, 2010) Citizen and Track II Diplomacy (January 3, 2011), Cultural Diplomacy(January 3, 2011), and Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in East Asia (July 1, 2010). Indian Public Diplomacy. India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao launched a redesigned MEA website and new public diplomacy website with remarks in New Delhi on December 24, 2010.
Power and Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Contributors: Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, Richard Clarke, Steven E. Miller, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Meghan O’Sullivan, Monica Toft, Stephen M. Walt.
Public Diplomacy Council, a nonprofit membership organization committed to the importance of the academic study, professional practice, and responsible advocacy of public diplomacy.
Gem From the Past
Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History, (Charles Scribners Sons, 1952; reprinted by The University of Chicago Press, 2008 with an introduction by Andrew Bacevich). In his introduction to this masterpiece by Reinhold Niebuhr — moral theologian, teacher, pastor, political activist, and public intellectual — Bacevich (Boston University) writes: “Simply put, it is the most important book ever written on U.S. foreign policy.” Niebuhr’s Irony,Bacevich summarizes, probes deeply the persistent illusion of American exceptionalism, the nation’s dreams of managing history, the false allure of simple solutions, and the imperative of appreciating the limits of power. Niebuhr’s profound impact on 20th century thinking about democracy and international relations is drawing renewed interest by columnists who look at his impact on the self-identified views of political leaders (both Obama and McCain), by policy analysts who see his influence on Obama’s Nobel Prize speech, and by scholars who debate “The Niebuhrian Moment: Then and Now.”